


Caught Daylight, Goddamn Right

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, post-5x23, this just happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: post-5x23 ficlet. Because the comms."He’s desperate on the comms as he watches the forest smolder, and it doesn’t escape him that, to send her name across the airwaves, he has to keep pressing his hand to his heart."





	Caught Daylight, Goddamn Right

_Title from “[22 (OVER S∞∞N)](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DISCEilPMNak&t=N2EzZDY3NjI5YTdhOTlmNGE0YTc2YzllMTIzMmVkZmE3NTQxNTlmMSxrS1NwZGZ2SA%3D%3D&b=t%3AiAw4tJIAalN1OvhWtUFPsQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftheshipsfirstmate.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F161041518184%2Farrow-ficlet-caught-daylight-goddamn-right&m=1)” by Bon Iver._

**Caught Daylight, Goddamn Right**

He watches the bombs go off, and he thinks about throwing himself across her in the back of a limousine.

That’s the last time he had been this terrified of losing her. It was also the last time she had kissed him with a lifetime’s worth of promises on her lips. It shouldn’t have been this way again. (It should have been at a wedding.)

“ _Felicity_!”

He’s desperate on the comms as he watches the forest smolder, and it doesn’t escape him that, to send her name across the airwaves, he has to keep pressing his hand to his heart.

“Felicity!”

She had kissed him, god, he’s so glad that she kissed him. Laid one on him like he should have a million times before. They’ve always taken that quiet moment with each other before turning to take on the world, and Oliver regrets every instance, before and after their official time together, when he didn’t take the opportunity to kiss her once, in case it was the last time.

He remembers the familiar press of her soft lips, her hand on his neck, thumb brushing against the shell of his ear. He remembers thinking the copper on her tongue was unnecessarily tragic detail in an already fraught moment. He remembers thanking any deity he’s ever tried to believe in for the blessing of Felicity Smoak’s love.

“ _Felicity_.”

His son, his _beautiful boy_ , is looking at him, terrified. He needs to tell him it’ll be OK, needs to take control of this boat and turn it around, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to speak, or even move, until he hears something in his earpiece.

She said she didn’t want to have regrets, but that’s all he can think of in this moment. They spent so much time postponing the real-life equivalent of the conversation they were having silently every time they made eye contact. They kept saying “You can’t know that,” when they should have been saying “You should know how much I love you.”

“Felicity.”

It’s been too long, his hazy brain is starting to be sure of it.

Time has slowed for him like this before, but he can count the instances on one hand. Once was on a raft in these same waters, once in woods just like the ones burning before him, once was in the apartment he and Felicity used to call home. Once was when he threw himself across her in the back of a limousine.

The noise on the comm comes in as static at first, but softly, through the crackling in the background, he makes out the sound of a pained voice that sends a different kind of panic through him. But oh god, it’s so much just to hear her, it’s almost enough to loosen the knot around his heart.

“ _Felicity_!”

The villain is dead, and his son is safe, and if she’s OK, he might yet escape Lian Yu with something left of his humanity. If he gets another second chance at happiness, he’ll do whatever it takes to hold his family tight. If she comes back to him again, he’s never going to let her go.

In his earpiece, there’s a pop of static that might also be a cough, and then he hears it, the sound that saves his life.

“ _Oliver_.”


End file.
